


Another Fine Mess

by Babykitsune9



Category: Avengers, Bleach
Genre: Clint and Ichigo pairing, F/M, Female Ichigo, Momma Nat, Protective Clint, Schemeing Pepper and Issun, The Avengers are nice, Young Ichigo, slowburn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-16
Updated: 2020-01-10
Packaged: 2020-12-20 17:14:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 12
Words: 19,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21060263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Babykitsune9/pseuds/Babykitsune9
Summary: Ichigo was always bailing people out of messes. It seemed to be both her job and her calling. However she didn't know what to do now. Her godmother and her dad had conspired to place her in the one place on earth she didn't want to be. Avenger's tower. eventual Clint/Fem Ichigo.





	1. Chapter 1

It was supposed to just be a publicity thing. Really, that's how it started.

It was Pepper's idea to help them seem...more _approachable_ after some incident or another with some Avenger fans crashing one of Tony's charity gala's. Which had ended badly for everyone, including those not even involved- if the newspapers and reports were anything to go by at all.

The idea was to hold a nation wide contest for kids.

Pepper was quick when she specified the ages of the kids taking part in the contest. Partially because smaller and younger kids (while fun and delightful little bundle's of energy) were far more likely to get themselves into trouble than someone older and more able- and _capable_\- she made sure that she stressed that word several different times- of taking care of themselves.

And since the contest was directly tied into grades- because nothing encouraged kids to study harder than the possibility of meeting their favorite hero's- Pepper stressed that point several times too. Then the contest would be for underprivileged kids all over the country.

However she also stressed that only so many could come to stay with them since part of the prize was a get-out-of-school free arrangement that would last three months.

Tony and several others that tried to talk her out of the three month thing but she had been adamant that simply meeting them wasn't enough. They would get out of school and come to the Avenger's tower and stay with them for_ three_ whole months as part of their prize.

Of course Nat had mentioned criminal behavior and background checks. To which Pepper had replied immediately that she would do those things since they couldn't have a villain of any kind running amok in their fair city. After which Tony and the others had reluctantly- _very_ reluctantly agreed to Pepper's suggestion and had watched the woman grin like a shark and go in for the kill.

Turns out, she'd already had the contest going for a while now. And the whole 'charity gala' incident had merely made her decide that much quicker about who would be coming to stay with them.

Tony had practically had a litter of kittens as Pepper had pulled up several files for several dozen different kids. All of which had been thoroughly checked into, and their numbers whittled down to four.

Two girls. And two boys.

Only one of which had even a little bit of a delinquent history, but nothing so terrible that the boy would have to be banned from the contest, much less the tower.

After letting the lot of them study the files she then pulled up pictures of the four and began to go through the introductions and profiles laid out for the kids to help them get to know them a little bit better.

At least two of the kids were orphans. While the other two had just as tragic backgrounds.

All of them went to the same school, and were friends. So they wouldn't have to worry about any of the kids being distressed about being far from home and their friends and such.

The two girls were hands down some of the prettiest kids that any of them had ever seen.

The first one of them to say anything had been Nat. And her comment was more of a question along the lines of, "Can I adopt them? I feel like I should adopt them." After which she had turned to Steve and asked, "I'd be an okay mom right?"

Steve had smiled at her while Clint had laughed softly.

Once Pepper had introduced the kids to them and shown each of their pictures she went more in depth about their personalities, likes, dislikes, favorite hobbies ect.

At least one of the kids was a fellow brainiac. Which was awesome. Tony and Bruce had been looking to extend their science-bro family a little bit.

One of the other kids was into music. And even worked with a band to make his own way in the world.

Clint's eye had lit up like Christmas lights as he'd practically gushed about how if the kid was any good, Tony could ask him to play at his next gala. Tony had merely scrunched up his nose a little bit and muttered a thoughtful sounding, maybe.

Nat had been pleased to learn that one of the girl's liked to cook and bake since that was something that she liked to do in her spare time. And it would give her a chance to bond a little bit with someone outside of group.

And Steve, Clint and Thor had all damn near turned to mush when they had found out that the other girl was a martial arts champion and had won more than a few tournaments and such.

"A fellow warrior!" Thor had practically shouted with glee. "We will bond over glorious battle!"

Steve reached out and placed a clam hand on the man's arm and simply shook his head no as he slowly said. "No. No glorious battle Thor. She's both a girl and a_ kid_. She isn't going to like doing battle." Trying to appeal to the man's sense of reason.

"But, she is a fighter-" Thor started to protest when Clint hissed out in an irked tone.

"So help me, Thor if you con a little girl into any sort of 'glorious battle' with you, I will destroy_ every_ pop-tart I find. Starting with your stash here in the tower."

Thor gasped and looked at his friend wide eyed in horror. But said nothing more about any sort of glorious battle.

Everyone knew that Thor was still sort of adjusting to life in their world and all, but there were just some things that a man should never do. Dragging someone's child to god knows where, to fight god knows who- was simply one of them. The demi-god would just have to find another way to bond with the kid.

Preferably over something nice and _harmless_.

Sighing tiredly, Tony eyed Pepper warily for a moment before finally saying, "Okay, you have us right where you want us Pep. When are we to expect the kids?"

Pepper smiled brightly and simply said, "Three days from now."

Tony said nothing, he merely hung his head in defeat as Nat jumped up out of her chair and started barking out orders to the lot of them, much to their- and Pepper's amusement.

"Get up! All of you now! We're going to have children staying with us- we have to get rid of some choking hazards, child proof the weapons and clean!"


	2. Chapter 2

Three days later-

Ichigo hadn't stopped glaring out of the airplane window since she'd been carried onto the plane and hog tied to her seat by her dad. To say that she was pissed to find out that she had been entered into some weird contest, was a gross understatement.

She had spent the entire flight mentally going over all of the creative ways that she would be making her dad's life utterly miserable once she returned home again.

Orihime peeked over the back of her seat at her and sighed as she slowly sat back down.

"Is she still glaring?" Chad asked. He needn't have bothered to really. Even he knew that Ichigo was still pissed about this trip overseas. He could practically feel the rage rolling off of her and it was giving him chills. So much so that he was starting to feel actual sympathy for her dad.

Issun had really done it this time.

He'd gone and pissed off one of the most sadistic and evil minded people that lived under his roof. Karin's tempermental hijinks didn't even come close to comparing to Ichigo's when she was in a royal snit, sort of like she was now. And the man would be lucky to get away with _just_ a beating. If she didn't flat out decide to kill him upon her return home.

Not that Chad could blame Ichigo any for being so pissed.

No one had asked her if she wanted to take part in this contest. Much less leave home for three months. Hell her dad hadn't even mentioned anything about it until he'd had her in the car this morning.

So natrually, she was far more pissed than a person leaving Japan for three months should be. But then...she technically had her reasons for being mad. Between school and her work as a Soul Reaper- not to mention trying to clean up the fall out from Aizen's attempt to destroy their hometown- she was stressed and wound a little bit tighter than she usually was.

However Rukia and several others had mentioned earlier when Chad and the others had talked to them before their flight, that the three months of not having to worry about hollows, Soul Reapers, nor any other super natural catastrophe might be good for Ichigo and the rest of them.

After all, they had worked hard to keep everyone safe. And they were, just kids. The rest and relaxation would be good for them.

They _had_ earned it after all.

Urahara and Rukia had both assured him and the others that they would be able to handle things until their return. So there was no need for any of them to worry about anything.

"You really need to calm down Ichigo." Uryu's voice chimed in, cutting through Chad's thoughts like a knife. Causing the giant to damn near cringe at the other boy's stupidity. Telling Ichigo what to do right now was a terrible move. Especially if one wanted to stay in one piece. "This is supposed to be fun. We get three months off of school and also get to spend it in the company of-"

"Trouble magnets, Uryu. Trouble magnets that will be close to us day and night- and I don't know what naive thoughts you're thinking. But getting kidnapped, held hostage, and even getting shot at by lunatics with death rays isn't my frigging idea of _fun_!" Ichigo spat in an irked tone as she turned her head to glare at him.

Uryu merely sighed, knowing that there was no arguing with Ichigo when she was like this. After all, it wasn't like she was technically wrong. The Avengers _were_ sort of trouble magnets.

Everything bad that had happened in New York city over the past three years could be traced back to them in some way or another. The alien invasion, the villains that had come out of the woodworks... Granted not everything that had happened was entirely their fault. Nor had all of it been bad.

Some of it had been good.

The vigilante's, and the mutants and the other super hero's that had suddenly appeared. Some of them were good. Though the way that they operated things could be a tad bit different. But still, his point stood. Just as Ichigo's did.

"Look," He finally said after a length of silence. "They are super hero's Ichigo. I very much doubt that they are going to allow us to stay with them and get kidnapped, held hostage, or shot at by death rays. It would be incredibly irrisponsible of them."

"Did you're dad sign the waiver?" Ichigo asked suddenly, catching him off guard a little bit. Uryu blinked at her as she waited patiently for him to answer her.

"Y-Yes. He did." Uryu said hesitantly as he tried to think of _what_ waiver Ichigo was referring too. As far as he knew, no one had signed anything. Waiver or otherwise.

"You're lying to me, you bastard."

Uryu tried to stammer his way through an explination. But Ichigo was having none of it. The two of them started arguing, and that argument quickly escalated to a shouting match. Which further escalated to the two of them throwing punches.

Chad and Orihime both hid their faces in embarrassment and thanked the gods up above for letting them fly on a private jet instead of a cramped and crowded one where the two were likely to accidentally blacken the eye of some random person.

It was a good thing that they would be landing soon, otherwise the two would be tempted to let Ichigo kill Uryu for opening his mouth in the first place.

* * *

"The security is handling the paparazzi, right?" Steve asked Tony for like the hundredth time in so many minutes.

"Yes." Tony said absently as he toyed with his Stark phone.

"And the plane will be landing soon?" This time it was Nat who spoke. She sounded...anxious. Nervous, maybe. Lifting his eyes from his phone, Tony looked at the woman and blinked. Good god, she didn't look like her usual sultry self. She looked...almost like a much younger and hotter version of Martha Stewart.

She was decked out in a cream colored sweater with pastel colored flowers and vines embroidered along the neckline and the sleeves and a pair of jeans and cream colored ankle boots. Her red hair was up in a stylish twist up off of her nape. And she was wearing pearls.

Pearls for fuck's sake!

Since when did the teams resident female assassin/seductress wear pearls? Tony wondered as Clint stepped up beside her and slipped an arm around her shoulders and kissed her on the cheek before saying fondly. "You're going to be an awesome mom Nat."

She smoothed out the front of her shirt and blushed a little bit.

"I hope so. I know that I'm not their real mother. But while they are here, I kind of want to be like their real mom. You know?"

Clint smiled at her, understanding what she was trying to say. Nat may have been one of the lucky ones to escape the Red Room as a young woman, however it wasn't before she had been sterilized and rendered incapable of having kids of her own. So if she wanted to unofficially 'adopt' a bunch of kids that weren't hers, or even his- he would back her one hundred percent.

Tony shook his head at the two master assassin's and decided to check the security cam on the jet and see what the kids were up to. Partially because he was bored and partially because he was wondering what the four might be up too.

Imagine his dismay at seeing two of them beating the crap out of each other while another tried, desperately to separate them before severe bodily harm could be achieved. Sighing, he put a hand over his eyes and held his phone out for Nat to see and muttered, "Looks like two of your new little darlings need a time out."

Nat looked down at the image of the kids fighting and blinked before turning to Clint and saying happily, "Look Clint, my babies first fist fight. Is it weird that I'm proud that they can handle themselves?"

"Not at all. I think I'm proud too." Clint said as he hugged Nat a little bit and eyed the camera feed with avid interest. The girl, Kurosaki Ichigo was a little spitfire from the looks of things. Her friend Issida was too apparently.

That was good.

It was nice to know that the kids were fighters just in case something unforeseen happened. It would keep him and Nat from worrying so much about them so much.

"The plane should land in another twenty minutes." Tony said as he checked his watch and then held out his hand and wiggled his fingers to indicate that he wanted his phone back. "That should be enough time for the two to finish bashing each others faces in."

Nat scoffed, "My children would never bash anyone's faces in. They have us to do that for them."


	3. Chapter 3

The plan landed a little bit ahead of schedule and now they were patiently waiting on the kids to come and join them so that they could do the face to face introductions before they left. The first one to walk off of the plane was the auburn haired girl, Orihime Inue.

"Hello!" She called out in greeting as she waved at them.

She was a bubbly and cheerful kid. Perfect. Tony thought with a small smile. He liked her already.

Close behind her, was the other girl.

Kurosaki Ichigo, who not only looked to be in a sour mood. But kept shooting weird glares over her shoulder at the door of the plane as she made her way over to her friend. She gave a sullen and somewhat subdued sounding greeting while trying to hide her face from them.

Probably to hide her split lip and any bruises that were forming on her face. Not that she could manage to hide her face very well anyways. Her hair, while long enough- wasn't styled to frame her face or fall in her eyes. So it was fairly easy to see the damage done to her by the other kid.

Tony heard a sharp intake of breath from Steve and Clint both and tensed up a little bit as Clint broke away from them to walk over and check the girl.

The girl had been fidgeting a little bit with her shirt sleeves, trying to pull them down a little bit further than they were meant too as Clint walked up to her and slowly reached out and carefully grasped her chin in his fingers and moved her head so that he could see her face a little bit better.

She was a pretty girl, despite the discolorations and split lip.

So much so that Clint's first thought seeing her up close like this, was that he'd have to warn the others to keep a really sturdy stick handy to beat the boys off with. He was fairly certain that the first time that she went out into the city without anyone around, she'd be swarmed by hoards of horny boys.

_Someone will have to escort her around for a while. Her little friend too._ He thought to himself as he studied her injuries. He'd say this for the girl. It was difficult for someone to get beaten this badly and not flinch at being touched. The fact that she somehow managed to prevent herself form flinching when he had taken hold of her chin, spoke volumes about her life.

Past and present.

This girl was used to people beating on her. A sudden and unexpected surge of fury welled up within him and he had to quickly squash the feeling lest he give his thoughts away.

Narrowing his icy blue eyes a little bit, he gently ran his thumb absently along the bloody split skin of her bottom lip and asked, "You okay?"

"M'fine." She replied. Her voice was soft, breathy- and holy shit- it almost made him go weak in the knees at the images it put into his head.

A sane man would have quickly scurried away. But...well...he never really claimed to be a sane man anyways.

Digging his free hand into one of his pants pockets, he pulled out a kerchief. He knew that it was weird and totally outdated, but he carried one on him anyways because he tended to need to use them and he didn't usually carry tissues on him at all times. Thankfully, he hadn't needed to use this one yet. So it was still clean enough to use as a make shift bandage or something.

Bringing the cloth up to his mouth, he took a moment to wet a small part of it with h is tongue and then started to lightly dab at her lip with it.

The girl squeaked at his action and tried to pull herself free of his grasp, but he didn't let go. and every time she tried turning her head, he just forced her to look at him again. So escape was futile. It took her several vain attempts to finally figure this out for herself, and when she did, she huffed and gave him a perturbed look as she simply stood there and let him do as he pleased.

The moment that he finished, he let her go- inwardly sniggering in amusement at how quickly she put space between them- and merely smiled at her as he shoved his kerchief into his pocket again and then walked off to rejoin the others again.

Once he was back in place next to Nat, Tony stepped forward and started talking.

"Is she okay?" Nat asked curiously in a whisper tone.

"We'll talk about it later." He assured her as he pressed another kiss to her cheek. Nat nodded her head quietly as they both waited their turn to introduce each other.

The introductions went well. Each of the kids were polite, and well mannered.

It was only once they got into the car that things seemed...to get rocky again. Everyone was trying to get to know the four a little bit better. Steve was asking some questions of each of them when out of the blue, the dark haired boy with the glasses finally said, "I can't believe that you knocked out two of my teeth Ichigo." Causing the whole car and everyone in it to suddenly go quiet.

"It could have been worse." Was all that the girl said in response as she looked out the car window at the passing scenery.

"You knocked out two of my teeth. How much worse could it have been?"

It was Orihime that chimed in this time. "Well Uryu, she could have simply broken your jaw. You know that she doesn't really bother holding back. I mean, I doubt that it would be totally on purpose- _MMMPH!_" She was forced to stop talking when her giant friend placed his hand over her mouth to shut her up.

"Stop talking, Hime."

"Yes, stop talking Hime," Uryu said, though his tone lacked any anger now. "I know that Ichigo doesn't have the greatest control when it comes to her...temper. Still, I'm down two teeth and my jaw hurts."

The girl didn't seem to react to his words at first. But them she muttered, "Sorry."

"I know you are."

_"Jerk." _Ichigo growled.

_"Delinquent." _Uryu shot back as the two tried of them to keep a straight face. But the quirk of their lips gave them both away.

* * *

The rest of the car ride was fairly quiet and uneventful aside from Tony asking the kids if their friends fought like they had on the plane, often. If so, then he felt that he should be prepared for the inevitable brawl to break out.

Turned out- that yes- the two fought often. But not nearly badly enough to usually require intervention from others.

The girl, Orihime had even nervously/jokingly stated that most of Ichigo's friends wanted to kill her at one point or another. It was simply because she rubbed them the wrong way or vice versa. And if not for the fact that Ichigo had thinned her lips while the giant, and dark haired boy had both tried to hide their displeasure- then Tony might have actually laughed.

God knew that he and others needed a good laugh to break the tension.

But any humor that the comment may have inspired was quickly wiped away upon the realization that the girl hadn't been kidding. She tried to hide the fact that she wasn't joking behind a smile, but anyone that was good at reading body language could tell that something was very, very wrong with her statement.

Even more telling was the way that her friends reacted.

Never had silence spoken so loudly, in Tony's opinion, as he shifted his gaze from the suddenly depressed Orihime to Ichigo. The girl wasn't looking at anyone. In fact, she was pointedly ignoring anyone that didn't say something to her. He frowned and wondered what was going through her mind.

He might have asked, but the second that the car pulled up to the tower and the door was open, the girl practically pushed everyone out of her way in an effort to escape them all.

Which was _also_ pretty telling in Tony's opinion.


	4. Chapter 4

Once inside of the tower, everyone crammed themselves into an elevator and waited patiently for it to take them to their final destination when Bruce asked hesitantly out of the blue, "So...uh... Ichigo get's into a fair amount or trouble- I take it?"

Ichigo ignored the question. And Bruce. And...pretty much everything at the moment.

Which left one of the others to answer the man's inquiry. "To be perfectly honest sir, we all get into a fair amount of trouble. It's just-" He stopped speaking and hesitated for a moment before going on. "I-It's just that Ichigo is the one who usually takes care of us and things when everything goes..._wrong_."

"Wrong? Like wrong how? Bad grades, wrong? Missing a test? Getting bullied? Oh! I know, pregnancy before marriage, kind of wrong. Right?" Tony said, sounding as interested in what the kids meant as everyone else in the elevator.

"End of the world wrong." Chad chimed in. Albeit somewhat reluctantly.

"Alien invasions, of the up close and personal, kind of wrong." Orihime said with a wince, and then glanced at Ichigo and hung her head when she noted the girl's stiff posture. Chad was the next to look over at the other girl and notice how stiff and tense she looked and reached out and tapped Uryu on the shoulder and motioned subtly with his hand to look at the girl.

The boy looked over at his friend and visibly flinched and then fell silent. They didn't bother speaking again until everyone was getting off of the elevator at which point Uryu said in a slightly nervous tone, "Ichigo if you want to punch me a few more times- I'm totally okay with it." As the girl brushed past him.

She paused for a moment to look at him from over her shoulder but then looked away and then started to walk away again. Obviously not caring one way or the other. Or maybe she was simply too mad to bother? It was difficult to tell with her since she seemed to have two default settings.

Angry and angrier.

Orihime whimpered and fell into step behind her friend muttering, "I hate when she's like this."

While Uryu made a whining sound and grabbed Chad's wrist in his hand and said, "She's going to kill me, isn't she?" The giant merely nodded his head quietly and then pulled his wrist free and patted him on the shoulder in a sympathetic manner and then simply told him to start sleeping with one eye open, despite knowing that it wouldn't save him any if Ichigo really wanted him dead.

Watching the four kids curiously, the adults all exchanged looks and then stepped out of the elevator behind them.

"Okay, kids- this way please." Tony called out to them as the four started to meander off. "You haven't had a tour of the building and wandering off is a really bad idea right now since there are some places that you just can't go without the right clearance." The kids slowly walked back to rejoin him and the others.

"Alright, so- this is the common room. This is the place where all of us eat our meals together, and just sit and veg after a long hard day's work. I know that each of you is probably tired, so I'll save the tour up to the person I've paired each of you off with. And since two of you are girls, we thought that it might be..._prudent_ to separate the guys from the girls. So each of you will be staying on a different floor with a different Avenger who will keep an eye on you since you'll be sleeping on their floor anyways. Miss Inoue, you'll be bunking on Natasha's floor."

Orihime smiled at Nat who gave the girl a nervous smile.

"Miss Kurosaki, you'll be bunking down on Clint's floor." Ichigo blinked and scanned their faces for a moment, obviously wondering who the hell Clint was as said Avenger stepped forward and winked at her.

"Sado, you'll be bunking on Steve's floor. And Ishida, you'll be bunking on Thor's floor. He was adamant about letting you stay there and swore up and down that he doesn't snore and he likes sharing his pop-tarts." Thor stepped forward and smiled down at Uryu who merely stammered out,

"P-Please t-take c-c-care of me s-sir."

"Of course I will young friend." Thor assured the stammering boy in a gentle- oddly enough- inside voice kind of tone.

"Each of the Avenger's assigned to you will help keep you out of trouble while your here. And since you're all sort of tired and moody-" Tony shot Ichigo a pointed look, causing the girl to stiffen and then scowl at him. "I've had maps printed out for each of you to use to help get around until you get your tour of the building. The red marked area's on the map are the places that you need to avoid for safety's sake. The orange and green are the places that are okay for you to go to. It includes the swimming pool, the gym, and a few other places including the café and the three other restaurants downstairs." Tony said as Bruce kindly acted as his assistant and handed the maps out to the kids.

"There is maybe one or two other rules to go over before you head up to settle in. One is that while you're here, Natasha will be your...uh...adoptive mom/den mother. She would like for each of you to call her mom. Or mamma Tasha. And she's planned to do some activities with each of you everyday or so."

"Ichigo! We get an Avenger as an adopted mom! Isn't that cool?" Orihime said excitedly. Her depressed mood suddenly forgotten.

"Yeah, Hime. It's cool." Ichigo said as Orihime then turned to Nat and started asking if they could start calling her mom immediately. Ichigo sighed and reached up to run her fingers through her strawberry blond hair as she mused to herself. _The poor woman doesn't know what she's in for._ Orihime would abuse the 'calling her mom' thing outrageously.

"Oh! Does this mean that Ichigo is my sister?" Orihime suddenly asked out of the blue. Nat chuckled at the girl and told her that if she wanted her to be then she was. Ichigo ignored her response to Hime's question until her friend suddenly tackled her to the floor in a tight hug.

She didn't even have time to yelp. She just let out this weird sounding squeak as Orihime tackled her and knocked her on her ass. Orihime was blubbering about how she had always wanted a sister and stuff as Ichigo just sat there with her arms around her just...petting her hair.

Because in all honesty, she didn't really know what to do with Orihime when she got like this and petting her hair seemed like the right thing to do. Mostly because she hated it when Orihime got like this. And partially because she was desensitized to emotions and the normal responses to specific ones.

"Oh! I knocked you down. I'm sorry Ichigo." Orihime said when she finally realized what she had done. She was quick to scramble up and hold out her hand to help her. However the moment that Ichigo reached for her hand, a sharp pain in her chest caused her to protest even the slightest of movements. She let out a pained hiss and her other hand came up to her chest to absently rub at the place that hurt.

Unfortunately ever since her release from the hospital several months prior, after her coma/heart transplant surgery- Orihime, Chad and Uryu had been very watchful of her and every time she so much as let out a groan they began fussing.

So it was really no surprise that Orihime suddenly asked in a not-so-quiet voice, "Ichigo, what's wrong with you're chest? Is it your heart again?" Causing everyone in the room to freeze up and eye her oddly for a moment before someone demanded.

"What's wrong with her heart?"

"She had a heart transplant surgery almost two in a half months ago." Chad said as he knelt down and started to reach out to frame her face when she stopped him by smacking lightly at his hands and growling out.

"_Stop_. I'm fine. It was just a twinge."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Alright..." Chad said as he grasped her arm in his hand and slowly stood up, more or less dragging her up with him as he stood.

Once they were on their feet, Ichigo was subjected to being grabbed and checked over by Nat and Clint. After which she also had to suffer through a couple of hugs from several different people, including Thor and Steve as well as Nat, Clint and her friends. And of course, some kisses to her cheeks and forehead from Nat.

Which caused the teen to practically squirm uncomfortably and look beseechingly at the others for help until the woman slowly released her and asked, "Are you sure that you're alright little one?"

"I-I'm fine ma'am. Really." The girl said as her face flushed a pretty pink color as Tony huffed and made a mental note to get his hands on the girl's medical records ASAP. He didn't like being kept _uninformed_ about her obvious medical needs.

"Okay...now that the drama is out of the way... I'm going to let you're assigned Avenger take each of you up to you're rooms to settle in. The only other rule I have about you four staying here is, stay out of trouble, don't get into fights, and we all eat together at about eight thirty. So...be back down here by then. Later." Tony said as he waved at them and then made a beeline for the door.

He had a phone call to make to Pepper.


	5. Chapter 5

Once Tony was gone, Steve told everyone to pair off with their Avenger so that they could be taken to their rooms. But had to pause as Orihime asked them to wait for a moment and then dug a few things out of her bag and held them out to Ichigo.

"Sorry that I forgot earlier. But I figured that since I know you and you're habits and such, that you'll want to do some work related stuff even while we're here so that you don't fall behind any- I managed to grab some of those books that you like before we left Japan. I'd been meaning to give them to you since we landed." She quickly explained as her friend took the books from her. Well, books was a little bit strong. The bound pieces of paper in the girl's hands looked far more like catalogs.

Really thick, glossy, colorful _catalogs _that the girl quickly hugged against her chest before he nor anyone else could really see the covers. Once she had them secured in place, she muttered a soft thanks to Orihime for being so thoughtful and then turned to Clint who was watching the exchange with interest.

"Ready, sweetheart?" The man asked. She nodded her head and waved at them as she and Clint left the room to head up to the man's floor.

"I didn't know that you're friend worked." Nat said in a curious tone, hoping to get Orihime to talk about the other girl's job a little bit.

"Oh yeah- Ichigo has _two_ full time jobs," Orihime said with a smile. "Both of them pay really well, but the hours are beyond hectic. She works for herself with one of them, so she can make her own hours a lot of the time. But the other one is...well, troublesome. Don't get me wrong, she likes it most of the time. And she gets to do something to help others. So it makes her happy but-"

"Orihime!" One of her friends snapped sharply, causing the girl to jump a little bit and suddenly fall silent. "Stop talking about Ichigo's work."

"Oh. Right. Sorry Uryu."

"I'm not the one that you need to apologize to. You know that Ichigo doesn't like talking about that stuff to people she doesn't know well."

Orihime hung her head and didn't speak again.

Once she and Nat were off of the elevator, Thor spoke up. "Young friend, you should not hurt the young lady's feelings so. She seemed..._proud_ to share information about lady Ichigo's work with us."

"She can be as proud as she likes. But some things just shouldn't be shared. Besides, Ichigo's second job is a secret for a-" Uryu paused and turned his head to glare at Thor for a moment before saying, "Oooh, you are good. I can see that I'll have to watch myself around you."

Thor merely grinned at the boy. His expression innocent.

* * *

"I'm guessing by the way that you're friends act around you, that you're their version of Captain America." It wasn't a question. He'd been watching how the kids interacted since they had gotten off of the plane almost two in a half hours ago. And the hierarchy of the kids and the way that they functioned was absolutely ridiculous.

Clint had noticed right away that Ichigo was at the top of the 'ladder' and was the leader of the group. Though whether or not she wished to be was unknown to him.

The obvious second in command was Chad.

The reasons for this weren't that noticeable to him at the moment. But he supposed that the kids had their reasons.

The third, was Uryu. And of course there was Orihime.

He got the impression that her ranking in their little group tended to fluctuate back and forth. Again, he didn't know the reasons why.

But he did know that the kids had nothing but nice things to say (with the exception of Uryu) about Ichigo. So apparently her ability to lead them was something that they greatly admired, and appreciated. From the way that the kids had spoken about the girl, she wasn't so much of a trouble maker as she was the person who took care of the problems that occasionally seemed to come up.

Not the little ones either. But the big ones.

The kind that got people hurt or _worse_. Which would sort of explain a few things about her.

Of course knowing these things only seemed to pique his interest in the girl even more. He'd been interested in her ever since he'd checked her injuries out at the airport. And not just because Nat had decided to adopt her and the others as her children either.

Though that did sort of play a role in his interest.

No- there was something else. Something that he had some difficulty putting his finger on.

Pausing outside of her bedroom door, he glanced over at her and narrowed his eyes a little bit when he noted that the split lip from earlier was already healed up. And some of the bruising was faded too.

_Accelerated healing?_ He wondered with a combination of curiosity and dismay while pasting a friendly smile on his face. It would certainly be something worth mentioning to the others later when he sat down to speak with Nat about the fact that one of her new daughter's tended to get slapped around a lot.

He was betting that she would be torn between approval towards the accelerated healing, and pissed about the fact that someone/someone's been hurting the kid. Though now that he had an inkling about the healing thing- it would be slightly more difficult to prove unless there was something in her medical files to state otherwise.

"Here we are! I hope that you don't mind blue. Tony was going to make the room a pink and purple, unicorn covered nightmare- but Nat stepped in and said that blue would suit you better." He said as he opened the door and then stepped aside just in case she wanted to bolt.

God knew that after the day that she'd had so far; he certainly couldn't blame her if she did. She just...seemed the type.

However once the door was open and he was safely out of the way just inside of the doorway of the room, he wound up waiting several minutes for her to enter. For some reason she seemed very hesitant.

"Since you weren't really given any instructions on what to bring with you as far as clothing and such went, Tony has offered to let you and your friends go on a little shopping spree for anything that you may need. Clothing, shoes, makeup- hair accessories, brushes, necessities..ect. Though if you want my opinion, I'd stock the fridge with a ton of goodies. And the empty entertainment center with a crap ton of movies, box sets and video games otherwise you'll be bored a lot during your stay. Especially on days when we have to leave for jobs." He said as he watched her wander from one side of the room to another before slowly sitting herself down on the royal blue and gold thread embroidered bed.

"That's okay. If I or the others need anything, I can get it for us myself. There's no need for Mr. Stark to bother. I can take care of whatever we need." She finally said after several heartbeats of silence.

Clint was more than a little bit surprised at her words. Mostly because Tony was a billionaire and people tended to _enjoy_ taking advantage of that fact. Kids could be especially bad about taking advantage. And yet... Yet here was one not only willing to take care of her own needs. But she was willing to even foot the bill of those of her friends as well.

Either she had an _beyond_ excellent paying job or she was delusional.

"You really think that you can take care of yourself and your friends?"

"Course I can. I've been doing it for over three years." She said. There was nothing boastful about her reply that he could tell. There was just simple honesty.

_Weird._ He thought to himself before deciding to change topics before she got miffed at him and clammed up.

Deciding to ask instead about how she'd wound up having a heart transplant done, because he was a nosy bastard and the kid was literally staying in his territory and he felt that he had some small right to know. Pushing himself away from the wall, he walked over to the bed and slowly seated himself down on it, next to her.

"Do you mind if I ask- I mean, would it upset you if I asked you about the..."

"The transplant?"

He nodded, as he settled his elbows on his knees and propped his chin up in his hand and waited for her to say something. She seemed to be thinking it over and then said, "It all boiled down to a choice really."

"A choice?"

"Yeah. It was either going to be me or my friends."

"How so?"

"A...uh...psychopath- He...uh... h-he took Orihime. He kidnapped her. And we had to go after her."

"Why not call the police?"

"The police aren't equipped to handle someone like Aizen. He's...not normal. His friends aren't normal. They're..."

"Mutants?" He asked, sitting p just a little bit straighter. His expression concerned as he looked the girl over. She was chewing her bottom lip and frowning. Her body language all but screamed- anxiety. It was obvious that she didn't like talking about it. But she was trying to be respectful of him since he'd been nice enough to actually _ask _instead of demand answers.

Finally she replied, "Not mutants. Super-"

He felt as if the air had been knocked out of his lungs. _Superhumans_. She and her friends had gone up against a psychotic superhuman and his friends? And lived. _How?_ He wondered as he supplied the word that she was looking for, hoping to god that his voice didn't shake with rage.

"Superhuman. The word that you're looking for is superhuman."

"Yeah, that." She muttered with a thin lipped smile. "Anyways, the police aren't equipped to handle someone like him and his friends-"

"But you and yours are?" He didn't mean to say it and interrupt her again. Truly he didn't. But when he get's pissed or upset his mouth tends to run away with him a little bit.

She gave him a dark look and he put his hands up for a moment and then put them back down and allowed her to go on. "He did something to manipulate the minds of hundreds, maybe thousands of people-" Clint sucked in a ragged breath but remained quiet. " The authorities, they wouldn't have been any help. _Everyone_ forgot about her. Friends, classmates at school, her neighbors- No one knew who she was. It was just...she was there one day, and she was just gone without a trace the next."

"I remembered. Chad and Uryu remembered. As well as a few choice others. But when we asked her closest friend if she had seen her, all we got in response was, 'Who is Orihime?' It was frustrating. Maddening even. It took us almost two weeks to pin point where he had her. It took us three more to plan and travel there to get her. We may not look it- be we're...a lot more-"

"Spirited?"

"Sure, lets go with that." Ichigo said before then going on. "Anyways, it took us so long that we weren't sure if she was alive or not. But...we were her friends. And dead or not, we had to _try_." Clint remained silent as he mulled over her words. He could empathize with her and her friends. What they must have thought and felt at the time.

She was right, not knowing was maddening.

A similar situation would have driven him absolutely crazy.

"There are _no_ Avengers back home. There's no super hero's to come running to save us whenever something happens. No one to care or pick up the pieces or offer comfort or safety of any kind. Everything that we do- we have to do on our own. We reached Aizen's hideout, fully knowing that none of us may even make it out alive or in piece- we were _okay_ with that. We were at peace with it. We had said our goodbyes before we left home to go get Orihime. So we had no regrets."

She paused for a moment to look down at her hands, both tightly clenched in her lap before going on to say. "There was twenty or so of them, and only six of us. Out of the six that went after Orihime, everyone but me was badly hurt. So much so that they couldn't fight anymore. Which left only me to handle the last guy. Aizen's second hand. He- He was a strong, sick bastard. He didn't understand what it was that made us human. During the fight, he went for Orihime and Uryu- He was going to _tear_ out their hearts."

"He had already proved himself to be just as strong physically, if not stronger than you're friend Captain America. Maybe even the Hulk. So he definitely could have done it. He managed to get close enough to try, and I had to force him away from them. During all the chaos and stuff, he decided to make a deal with me. I stand there and let him rip my heart out and he would spare my friends. _All of them_. Not just Orihime and Uryu, but everyone else as well. He would make those that were under him in rank stop fighting them and he would allow them to return home unhindered."

Clint was on the verge of a panic attack just hearing her talk bout it. Honestly he felt sick just thinking about what must have happened next.

"If there was one thing that I had already learned about him- it was that he was a man of his word. Once he made his promise, he'd kill anyone that tried to hurt my friends further. It wasn't much of a choice. But I'd rather it be me instead of them. So I-" She wrapped her arms around herself and looked away. Her teeth were clenched and she looked..._disturbed_.

"I-I-"

_"Stop."_ Clint finally growled out causing her to look at him as he slowly said, "Just tell me that you beat them. That that guy and everyone else is rotting in a cell somewhere."

She swallowed and nodded her head curtly as he exhaled and looked away and simply said, "You did good then." It was more than he could say for most people her age in similar situations.

At least she and her friends had lived.

* * *

Tony, Bruce, Steve and Thor watched the video feed of Ichigo and Clint talking and turned to the others. Bruce looked like he was about to go green from just listening to her tell about why she'd had to have a heart transplant. Thor was starting to spark.

And Steve- well the good old boy scout had stayed long enough to listen. Now he was storming down the hallway to the elevator. Probably intending to go to the gym and break a few things to vent.

Tony had realized that something was off about the kids from the moment that they had gotten off of the plane. But he hadn't realized that it was something like this.

And the absolute worst part was- that when he tried to look stuff up via the internet- he found evidence to support _everything_. The kids hometown was a hotbed of_ strange_ and often times _life threatening_ activity.

There were dozens upon dozens of news articles about buildings falling, trains derailing in subway tunnels, hospitals flooding- not little floods from a water pipe either- but actual honest to god_ flooding _where people literally drowned in their beds. There were random attacks on local schools, buildings and streets set aflame- The death toll in the past four years had leapt from hundreds.

To thousands.

_Thousands._

Sighing, Tony scrubbed his face with his hands and closed the windows on the articles and events taking place in Karakura town and instead decided to focus on something else.

Ichigo's hospital records.


	6. Chapter 6

Clint reclined back against the headboard of Ichigo's bed with the girl held against his chest, absently petting her silken hair as she dozed. They'd been like this ever since she had finished telling how about how she wound up needing a heart transplant.

It hadn't felt right to just leave her alone when she'd been so distressed. So he'd done the same thing that he'd done a hundred times before with other people.

He had hauled her into his lap and made himself comfortable and tried to comfort her.

He didn't bother with talking since no amount of talking at that point in time would be considered distracting enough to her. So instead he'd just held her and petted her hair until he had achieved the desired result.

Though usually the desired result didn't involve dozing off on him. But he'd take what he could get after an utterly horrifying story like hers. Besides, the kid had obviously been tired before they had even talked. And the fact that she had yet to wake up screaming was a positive thing.

I mean really, what kind of person would just stand still and let someone rip their heart out? Not a normal one that's for sure. But he had _understood_\- even if only a little bit- why she had allowed it to happen. If ever given a choice between his life and the lives of his friends- he would probably do the same.

He couldn't guarantee that he'd do it quietly. He'd probably kick and scream and curse up a storm. But that was just him.

Feeling her squirm a little bit, he paused any and all movement until she went still again once she was comfortable before he started to pet her hair again.

He wasn't sure how long he'd sit like this. Just letting his mind drift a little bit here and there. But he didn't care as long as she was able to draw some comfort from his presence.

* * *

Tony wandered into the common room about an hour before dinner, looking like death warmed over and carrying a thick file underneath one of his arms.

"Whoa, are you okay?" Bruce asked in concern as he looked at the man as he brushed by him.

"Oh, I'm just peachy." Tony growled out as he made his way over to the table where everyone ate and flopped himself down in a seat and slammed the file down on the table in front of him. "Except now I totally understand why Pepper broke down crying at the mere mention of this kid's medical file. I read four pages. _Four._ And then I threw up."

"That explains why you look so terrible," Steve said as he set a bottle of water down next to his hand. Tony looked up at the blond, gratefully and sighed before he grabbed the bottle and viciously twisted the cap off and started to drink. "Do you want to try sharing your findings."

It wasn't a question. It was more of a softly spoken request from someone who wanted to delve further into the life and past of the girl to sate their own curiosity.

Taking the water away from his mouth, Tony muttered, "Sure. Let's share the near constant show of misery that is this girl's life." He pushed the file towards Steve who picked it up and with a wary look at Tony flipped it open and began to scan the pages.

He got ten pages in before he had to hand it off to someone else on account of getting sick himself. And when he was done dry heaving in the kitchen sink, he returned to the table and flopped himself down in his own chair while Thor took a turn since they wanted to avoid handing the damned thing to Bruce.

Luckily, Thor didn't get sick. Tony supposed that it was due to the fact that he was so much older and much less squeamish then the rest of them.

"Lady Ichigo has been tortured." Thor said as he reached one page and briefly looked it over. "_Several_ times from the looks of things."

"What?!" Bruce practically shouted in disbelief and then reached over to take the file from Thor to see for himself.

However the thunder god wisely held the file up over the both of their heads and merely said in a gentle chiding tone, "Nay friend Bruce. You turn green, remember." Bruce made a frustrated growling sound and then sat back down with a huff and waited patiently for Thor to finish up so that he could make another try grabbing the file.

"How bad is it Thor?"

"Bad. Certainly not the worst that I've seen but..."

"But?" Steve prompted.

"But it looks as if Lady Ichigo has certainly had her fair share of misfortunes for one so young."

"How bad is it, Thor-" Tony asked causing the blond to look at him oddly before he then tacked on. "On a scale of one to ten, and even compared to some of the stuff that you've seen in you're long, long life."

"On a scale of one to ten?"

"Yes." Tony said soberly.

Thor's eyes flickered from his friends back to the pages for a moment as he got a thoughtful look on his face before slowly saying, "One thousand, nine hundred and thirty eight."

Everyone gaped at him for a moment and then Tony emitted a strange high pitched whining sound that to Thor, sounded akin to fingernails on a chalk board as the man wheezed out, "T-That's t-t-t-terrible."

_"Aye."_ Thor agreed.

It was terrible. Mind bogglingly horrible if he were truly to think about it. He'd rarely come across someone who could suffer such things and come out of it either practically in one piece or even sane. And while young Ichigo wasn't exactly totally in one piece, she was sane. Or at least he thought so.

She didn't act crazed, that was for sure.

Nor was she homicidal like his brother. So...that was something to take heart in. Wasn't it?

Even so- the man knew that he nor his brothers and sister in arms would allow such things to happen to the girl again. The were Avengers after all. And it was painfully obvious to him that young lady Ichigo was in desperate need of avenging. But until then...

"Who will be the one to tell friend Natasha?" He asked and blinked as everyone hastily put their fingers up to their noses and then looked around. Leaving him the odd man out. He sighed knowing very well what this meant. It didn't mean that he had to be happy about it though as he growled out- as Midgardians often say when they were displeased, "You rat bastards." Before closing the file in his hands and tucking it underneath his arm and leaving the room to go and put the file away somewhere safe for the time being.

He wouldn't tell Natasha about their findings just yet since she was likely to be very upset and dinner was coming up soon. And he also needed to track down friend Clint before he said anything to allow the man a chance to go through the file as well.

* * *

Clint tugged the covers up over Ichigo's shoulder and paused for a moment and searched his mind in an effort to make sure that he'd covered all of the steps for tucking her in. He'd decided once she started sleeping a bit more deeply- that it was time for him to go.

Dinner would be soon.

And while there was nothing at all wrong with him hanging around for a bit longer, the girl was practically dead to the world. Plus he felt weird just..._hanging out_ in a defenseless, sleeping teenage girl's room.

Also Nat would probably come by to check on her soon and he wasn't all that keen for her to shoot him for being near her adopted kid while she was sleeping. Especially since the last time she'd shot him for being close to something of hers- she'd managed to nail him in the left butt cheek.

And that had hurt like a mother fucker.

Brushing Ichigo's hair back from her face one last time, he leaned over and kissed her cheek and then straightened his spine and turned to leave when he realized what he'd just done. And froze barely two steps away from the bed and hid his face in his hands with a soft groan.

_Oh dear god- Nat is going to kill me. _He thought in alarm as he moved his fingers just a tad so that he could peek through them at Ichigo for a moment. Taking in the way that she looked curled up on the bed as he felt an oddly familiar yet strange rush of heat pulse through him even as the thought,_ It would totally be worth it though_, slithered through his mind.

Quickly sorting through his thoughts and feelings he slowly lowered his hands away from his face as he came to the unbidden and startling conclusion that he liked the girl. And not in a strictly friendly way either.

No- he liked, _liked_ her.

Which was insane given the fact that he'd only met her a few hours ago and yet... He'd always known his own mind very well. And while it was more than just a tad bit _unnerving_ to know that he was attracted to the girl after spending so little time with her. All of the usual signs towards a possible 'romantic' relationship with the girl were there.

He...just had to figure out whether or not to pursue it.

He groaned again and mentally berated himself for cozying up- even in a small way- with a girl that wasn't even eighteen yet and muttered in defeat. "Yup. Nat's going to kill me."


	7. Chapter 7

Nat was totally smitten with Orihime. She mused to herself with a smile.

The girl was just..._awesome_. She was beautiful, sweet, mild mannered, polite- and in all honesty if she had ever been able to have children of her own, Orihime would have been her ideal child.

Sure the girl was a little bit scatter brained and chatty. But that was fine. Most children her age were.

Everyone had their quirks after all.

"So then what happened?" Nat asked, encouraging the girl to continue the story that she'd been telling her about some of the stuff that she had her friends got into. Which was nice since it gave her a little bit more insight into the behavior of the other kids while managing to get an idea of the things that they did and didn't do.

So far Orihime was a veritable wealth of knowledge where her friends were concerned. And Nat wasn't saying that lightly. The girl _literally_ couldn't stop talking about her friends and some of their youthful misadventures.

"Oh, Kisuke blew up his lab. And Ichigo was so pissed that she let the cops arrest him for messing up a nice neighborhood like that one. Needless to say, Kisuke hasn't blown anything up ever since. I think he's scared to go back. Not that I blame him or anything. He is a pretty man." Orihime giggled.

Nat gave her a smile and made a mental note to ask some of the other kids questions later about just who this Kisuke character was. He sounded shady to her. And even more than that- he sounded dangerous. And Nat didn't like shady nor dangerous people near her kids.

But then this Kisuke character wasn't the only person mentioned that sounded more than a little bit shady to her.

There was a guy named Tessai who was a friend of Kisuke's that Orihime had mentioned had a really bad habit of crawling into Ichigo's bed whenever she stayed with the man- despite how inappropriate it was to do so.

Nat already wanted to_ kill_ him for going near her more surly tempered daughter.

And then there was another friend, Yoruichi- whom apparently liked to run around butt naked around mixed company. Orihime had laughingly told her that poor Ichigo was usually the one who suffered for that. She got all embarrassed and egged the woman on by being shy about nudity.

The woman sounded like a predator to her.

And then there was Rukia. From what she'd been told about her, she was a young lady around the same age as Orihime and Ichigo.

She'd also been told how Rukia often hits, kicks, punches, tosses and shoves Ichigo around. Nat could think of a few things that she and Steve _both_ could say to the young lady about bullying others.

And then there was _Renji_…. From the way Orihime had described him- he was obviously a known felon. What the hell were her children doing socializing with a criminal anyways?! She wondered as she suddenly heard another name that she waited to see if she should add to her list.

"So- Rukia got into trouble once. Really bad trouble. Some people were going to murder her-" Nat blinked and tried to keep her expression carefully neutral as she continued to listen. "Ichigo decided after being nearly cut in half, that she had to save her-" Nat nodded her head as she continued to listen, and almost left the room to place a few phone calls to some very, _very_ questionable people after hearing that her other daughter had almost_ died_ fighting a well known serial killer. A serial killer for fucks sake!

One that now claimed her as a_ friend_. Honestly she felt so enraged by the very idea that she felt as if she were about to have damned stroke!

"So...um...this serial killer-"

"Kenpachi." Orihime supplied helpfully. Nat gave her a careful smile while on the inside she was screaming, _He will suffer the wrath of a thousand hells! _She promised he would.

"Yes, him. What happened to him?"

"Oh- well he and Ichigo get together every few months or so to see if he can kill her." Orihime chirped, totally oblivious to Nat's darkening thoughts.

"W-What? _Why?_ Why would Ichigo get together with him and allow such a horrible thing?" Nat asked, totally aghast. She couldn't understand why her daughter was playing games with a killer. Didn't she know that he was a bad person? Did she have a death wish? She wondered in concern.

"Oh. They made a deal," Orihime said helpfully. "Every few months or so- he comes to her location, takes a crack at killing her, and they fight. If they don't... He'll start murdering people again. And Ichigo doesn't want that. She see's the deal she made with him as a sort of public service. She's protecting everyone that he might decide to come after. And in return, he tries to kill her and vent. It's technically a win-win."

Nat blanched a little bit and looked at the girl oddly. While managing to somehow wrap her mind around such a deal. Killers rarely kept their word. Even she knew that much. And yet... "What if he doesn't keep his word?"

Orihime giggled, "He will. Despite the fact that he kills people- he prides himself on honor. Ichigo is banking on that when they face off. And he hasn't broken a single promise that he's made to her yet. Besides, it was stipulated by Ichigo, herself that if he killed anyone innocent before she's dead- his life belongs to her. He'll have to take a blood oath and honor it until the day that he dies. Especially since Ichigo is_ notoriously_ hard to kill and isn't likely to die anytime soon."

"And if she does? What happens then?"

"Well, that was another stipulation of the deal that they made. Ichigo's pretty sly about back up plans and stuff. Anyways, the stipulation is- if he ever does manage to kill her- then a person of her choosing has to take her place. But since she's never named anyone. So he wouldn't know who to go after. And she isn't talking because it's easier to get the drop on someone if they never see what's coming- ya know?"

Huh? Was all that Nat could think.

"That..doesn't make any sense."

"Huh? Sure it does! Look, Kenpachi holds honor and strength above all things. Because Ichigo never named her replacement- he cant decide who to go after next. If he doesn't know- then he can't do anything about it. Which in turn would make it difficult for him to know who he's supposed to go after. And will _allow_ them to go after him and strike first. And the probability of him getting away unscathed are less than three percent. It's a trap! Isn't it great. She can be pretty underhanded when she wants to be. And what's more- is she isn't even breaking the deal that they make. He never said that she had to _tell_ him the name of her replacement. So she hasn't."

Orihime was right. It was a trap of some kind. And from the sound of it- it allowed her other daughter much as far as maneuvering went. It was a tactical game.

By not naming the person who would take her place if she died, it allowed her to carefully plan for one or more people to take her place. Making the chances of taking the man out much greater than if someone simply did it alone.

It was actually...kind of brilliant. And definitely _not_ the kind of move that a kid would use.

"Does Ichigo play chess?" Nat asked, wondering if she could con the girl into a few games to access her ability to strategize.

"I'm not sure," Orihime said and then seemed to think for a moment before tacking on. "I don't think that she does."

"Well, I do. And I would like to sit down and play her sometime."

"Okay!"


	8. Chapter 8

Everyone was on time arriving in the common room for dinner. Even Ichigo, who had at some point shuffled in looking tired as hell, and had to be grabbed by one of her friends and carried over to the table cause she was still partially asleep. Once everyone was seated, they all started passing the food around.

Luckily, for tonight since the kids were joining them- Tony had decided to order in a huge meal of KFC. Chicken, mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, buscuits, fries and a bunch of other stuff.

They let the kids get their food first because all of them were fairly certain that there would be little to nothing left once Steve, and Thor got their share.

It was odd, but they all noticed that Ichigo would pass the food around to the others and make sure that they had theirs before she even touched it herself. And even when she did put some food on her plate, it wasn't much until the others started to sneak food onto it when Orihime was distracting her.

"Why did you do that?" Tony asked curiously once Ichigo was about to tuck into her food and found a bigger pile of potatoes, several more helpings of chicken thighs, and some more mac and cheese, than she had originally had on her plate.

"She has a really fast metabolism," Uryu said before going on to explain. "But when we're around a lot of people, she doesn't like eating what she really needs. She feels bad if anyone else goes without, you know? And when she deprives herself, she tends to get sick." He said with a slight glare at the girl as she snuck some of the food that her friends had given to her- back onto one of their plates.

Which earned her a dark glare from the other two.

"Could you guys maybe stop talking about me like I'm not here." Ichigo muttered as she finally managed to take a few bites of her food, and had to slap someone's hands away from her plate to keep her food from being added to again.

"Ow! Did you have to slap my hand that hard?"

"Yes." She growled out at the offender before taking another bite.

Not knowing what to do or say, the others piled their plates full and started eating their own food before some of them randomly started asking questions.

"Are the rooms to your liking?" Steve started off as he took a bite of his food and scanned the kids faces.

"They're great. I really like mine!" Orihime gushed happily. Ichigo didn't say anything about hers, she just nodded her head while the boys murmured their agreement about liking their rooms before Orihime then said as she reached out and grabbed Ichigo's arm, "Can we have a slumber party Ichi? It'll be so fun to stay up late and play cards-"

The girl grunted and said automatically, "I ain't playing strip poker with you ever again." Causing Tony and Steve to start choking on their food at the mere thought of the two girls playing such a thing.

"Then how about spin the-"

_"Fuck no."_

"Okay what about-"

"No, Orihime."

"Aww, but why not? It's fun!"

"I have nightmares, that's why!" Ichigo gritted out. "If you want to have a slumber party so bad, then you come to my room. I don't trust you _not_ to do anything weird to me if I enter the twilight zone that you inhabit."

"You're no fun Ichigo." Orihime pouted.

"Get over it. I choose to live, thank you very much." Ichigo hissed at her before turning her attention back to her plate and muttered an dark oath upon finding some more stuff on it than there had been a moment before. Turning her head slowly, she glared at Chad who pointedly ignored her look of ire so that he could finish off his own plate.

"Can we invite the guys to the slumber party?" Orihime asked innocently, causing the two boys to tense up a little bit at the very idea of trying to sleep in the same room with Orihime since it was no secret that she tended to get a little bit...weird- well, _weirder_ than normal whenever she was at a slumber party.

The last time that they'd attended a sleep over with her, she had reduced Chad to hiding behind a table and Uryu had been rendered unconscious and had woken up butt naked and hanging upside down from a ceiling fan. A ceiling fan! He didn't even know how the hell he'd gotten tossed up there in the first damn place!

And Chad had been so traumatized that he never spoke of it even when Ichigo asked about it.

So needless to say, unless Ichigo could manage to curb some of her 'wildness' they didn't want to be anywhere _near_ a slumber party with her.

"Sorry Orihime," Chad said quietly, "But Uryu and I have..._guy_ things to do."

"Guy things?"

"We're going to measure our penises and do weird and gross guy stuff!" Uryu said in a slightly hysterical tone causing everyone at the table to look at him weirdly before he said defensively, "What do you people want from me? I'm scared."

Chad shook his head. And Ichigo face palmed and then lowered her head to prevent anyone from seeing her horrified expression before she finally lifted her head and looked over at the two boys and mouthed the words, _Take me with you please._

The two boys just looked at her sympathetically as the giant reached out and set his hand on top of her head and ruffled her hair before saying, "Sorry. We can't."

"I hate you both." Ichigo said sweetly as a fond smile curved her lips.

The two boys merely exchanged a look for a moment before then saying, "We can live with that." in unison. Not long after that, the two boys politely excused themselves and scampered off. Presumably to hide themselves until sometime tomorrow morning.

Leaving Ichigo alone to more or less deal with her friend.

The poor girl.

Finally the teen sighed and looked over at Orihime's pitiful looking puppy dog eyed expression and relented. Though she seemed far from happy about it. Orihime shrieked happily and nearly knocked her out of her chair throwing herself at her in an effort to give her a hug.

Luckily though, Nat managed to snatch the back of the girl's shirt before she could do anything. At which point Ichigo looked at her and sked if she wanted to be part of the slumber party too. Startled slightly by the question, Nat accidentally released Orihime. And not even two seconds later, Ichigo was on the floor, pinned underneath the girl.


	9. Chapter 9

In the end, Ichigo lucked out as far as the slumber party went. Orihime decided against it since she wanted Uryu and Chad to be present along with mamma Nat and the others, after which she decided to turn in for the night since she was sort of tired.

Ichigo was hard pressed to keep the happy smile off of her face as Orihime scampered off.

As far as she was concerned, she would need time to 'Orihime proof' the building and come up with safety drills for everyone to go through. Also- having more people invited to Orihime's slumber party meant more people for the other girl to _attack_.

And weirdly enough, Orihime was nothing but an equal opportunity attacker. So Ichigo was going to set the suckers up to be knocked down. They wouldn't want anymore slumber parties once they saw the horror that Orihime put Ichigo, Uryu and Chad through.

Once Orihime was gone, Nat asked her to play a few rounds of chess with her. Which puzzled Ichigo a little bit since she didn't know how to play. But Nat was insistent. So she relented, if only to appease the woman so that she'd leave her alone afterwards.

So once she consented, Nat practically scurried to set up the chess board much to the bemusement of the rest of the adults present. Some of which were watching everything that she did with far more interest than Ichigo was comfortable with. So while one of the adults- Tony? struck up a small conversation about an upcoming shopping trip for her and her friends to get whatever they would need for the next three months they would be there. And mentioned giving them his card- Ichigo flat out told him that she had credit cards for her friends and they were available for them to use at any point they needed them.

After which she told him that letting them use his card _or_ money wasn't necessary.

It was _her_ job to take care of her friends, not _his_.

To say that the man was stupefied would be an understatement. He'd gone totally and utterly quiet and still, and had had to be led over to the couch by one of his friends as Nat waited patiently for her to sit down so that she could explain the game to her.

Ichigo barely managed to pay any attention to what the woman was saying before the first game started. Nat won that one and the second one because she kept making stupid mistakes. But the next four in a row- Ichigo won.

Which must have shocked the woman, and a few of her friends. Cause one second she was playing and the next the woman was cussing at her in Russian while she scowled down at the chess board as she studied it before then returning her eyes to Ichigo and asking/demanding how she'd done that.

Ichigo's expression must have been pretty confused, because Nat went on to elaborate that she'd won the past few games in three moves. After that, Nat switched out with someone else. One of the blond guys that wasn't Clint. After which she and her new opponent set the chess board up again, and she started to play him.

He didn't win any of the games that they played, and when she asked him if he was even trying, he'd merely looked at her oddly and given her a tight lipped smile. After that Tony had switched out with him.

By now it was pretty obvious what they were doing, even to her. And yeah, she was just pissed enough to play with them a little bit more. Tony had wrangled a prize out of her if he won.

Because he was a weird person, his prize for winning a chess match against her was that she and her friends would take his unlimited credit card on the shopping trip. Ichigo was polite enough not to say anything negative about it. Despite her thoughts about him being just a little bit insane.

I mean, come on. Who in their right fucking mind gave kids that they didn't know at all- the use of an unlimited credit card for shopping? It was just stupid and downright irresponsible of him. Was he sure that he was an adult?

To say that she wasn't all that surprised to win the first three games against him- nor the fourth- was putting things mildly. And he was beginning to get frustrated with her. So she threw one game, and then won the last after which she gave him a tight lipped smile and slowly excused herself to go and do..._anything_ else but sit there and let them continue to treat her like an insect under a microscope.

Tony tried to call her back for a couple of rematches. He even tried baiting her some because kids were notorious for being little shits when baited, however Ichigo didn't react at all to being called names (not bad one's, mind you. Nat would kill him for being a bully if he hurt the girl's feelings any. Not to mention what terrible things Cap would do to him since he was standing right-_fucking_-there, watching and listening) or anything.

She merely waved at him and then disappeared around the corner. Tony didn't stop calling out until he heard the elevator door open and close before then turning to Nat and Steve and asking, "You guys noticed that too, right?"

"We did." Steve confirmed with a slight nod while Nat looked absolutely over the moon.

"My other daughter is a genius!"

"A tactical one, apparently." Steve said with a slight smile, before realizing that Nat likely hadn't been told yet what they had found out about the girl. Wiping the small smile from his face, the man shifted uncomfortably and exchanged looks with Tony, and Thor while Bruce huffed at them from his seat, and looked slightly bored though he was much more interested in things than he appeared. "Uh...Nat, we need to have a talk about Ichigo." Steve said carefully.

Nat's smile hadn't quite slipped from her face just yet. But everyone, present knew that it was only a matter of time before it did. And fuck, they hated knowing that.

"What is it?" Nat asked curiously, taking note of how they were all acting.

"Friday, lock down the common room please." Tony called out.

"Tony? Why are you-" Nat started to ask in alarm as Steve reached out and gently took hold of her upper arms and maneuvered her over to the nearest seat. Which happened to be the couch where Bruce was currently sitting.

"You need to sit down Nat. What we have to say about the kid, Ichigo is...uh..." Steve hesitated for a few moments as he tried to think of how to say what he was thinking.

"Troubling." Thor supplied helpfully. Tony snapped his fingers and pointed at him as Steve nodded his head and said,

"Yeah, that."

Nat frowned at them as Clint walked over and sat down beside his friend and slipped an arm around her shoulders and took hold of one of her hands and looked at the others as Tony began to talk about some of the stuff that he'd learned about the girl while Nat listened quietly in dread.


	10. Chapter 10

Nat didn't react the way that they worried that she might once they told her about Ichigo. Oh sure, she was plenty upset and pissed. And yes, she did add her own findings about the kid to theirs. And yeah, it was more than a tad bit _upsetting _to find out that the kid was sort of 'friends' with a serial killer who was playing a game weird game with her at the moment that could very well end in her death.

But they could deal with that later. _Maybe._ Hopefully once the guy showed up to take a shot at her again. Until then, they all had other things on their mind.

Like _why_ they somehow wound up being herded into the girl's room where they were currently being held hostage by momma bear Nat- who was doing a breathtaking impression of a much smaller, and decidedly more _vicious_ version of the Hulk.

Even Bruce was both simultaneously impressed and scared all at once. And that was truly saying something considering that there wasn't much at all that frightened the man since he gained his big, green, other half.

Currently, Ichigo was on her phone arguing with someone in the bathroom. Leaving the rest of them sort of just, jammed into the slightly small space of her bedroom trying not to interrupt because Nat had this weirdly _insane_ look in her green eyes that was scaring the hell out of all of them.

Like literally scaring the hell out of them.

Even Steve was trying to hide himself behind Thor. It was simply that terrifying.

They stood there silently, and listened to little bits and pieces of Ichigo's conversation with whoever was on the phone.

"No. _No!_ I can't come back home just yet. Yes, I know that you have my dad. No. No I don't particularly care if you're holding him hostage in protest of my having left the country. It was his idea. He got me into this, so he can get himself out of his current situation. No! Don't drag Ikkaku into this! He's fucking crazy!"

"No, I'm not joking! I'm totally serious. Some of Kenpachi's worst habits have rubbed off on him. No," She laughed a little bit. "I'm really not joking. Do you know how he greeted me the last time he saw me? It went like this, 'Hey Ichigo- thwack! Oh no, was that you're arm? Do you need a hand?' And then he picked my arm up and then used it to clap at me for _surviving _what should have been an ax to the face."

There was a heartbeat of silence before they heard the teen shriek, "Stop laughing you _monster_! It isn't funny!" Followed by, "Yes, yes I know that I've had far less 'nice' greetings from them. But my point remains. Yes. Yeah. Mm-hm. Well if you do decide to murder my dad- all I ask is that you don't send the bloody parts to my sisters. Karin may be sturdy, but even she would have a nervous breakdown if some of dad's body parts were sent to our home in the mail. Not to mention what it would do to Yuzu... Alright. Thanks man. Yup. Later."

The moment that the she was off of the phone, they could hear the kid plant herself on the floor and hit something that sounded suspiciously like the wall several times from frustration as she muttered a few inaudible oaths before finally sighing and standing back up and slowly opening the bathroom door.

She had just gotten out of the shower from the look of her.

Her hair was still dripping set and she had a towel around her neck as she stepped out of the spacious, smaller room in a long sleeved cotton T-shirt and a pair of shorts.

"Fuck all. If that bastard sends Ikkaku after me- I'll have no choice but to resort to lethal countermeasures just to keep myself and everyone else safe." She muttered to herself as she used the towel to wipe at her face a little bit. Still not realizing that they were in the room with her.

"Who's Ikkaku and why would you have to resort to lethal countermeasures?" Was the first thing that Nat asked once Ichigo was in the bedroom with them.

The girl let out a startled yelp and vanished from sight for a moment and reappeared across the room where she was hanging from the wall by her fingers and toes, staring at them in anger/disbelief, while wheezing.

_"Holy shit-"_ She squeaked out after several heartbeats of silence.

"D-Did you just teleport?" Tony asked in a stunned tone.

"Holy shit, what the hell are all of you doing here?"

"No, seriously. Did you just teleport?" Tony asked again, his stunned tone bleeding into something dangerously akin to excitement.

"I have a frigging heart condition! What do you think you're doing sneaking up on me like that?" Ichigo snapped at them in irritation as Nat crossed her arms over her chest and simply stared her down while the rest of them, aside from Tony, all looked acutely uncomfortable.

"I asked you a question," Nat said. Choosing to ignore the teen's distress for the moment since she seemed to be catching her breath okay. "Who is Ikkaku and why would you need lethal countermeasures to deal with him?" Nat asked again as Ichigo slowly pried herself free of her perch so that she could drop to the floor.

Once there, she flexed her fingers and wiggled her toes in a manner that pretty much told them without her explaining, that what she had done to stick to the wall, wasn't a normal thing for her. And was possibly even damaging to her under normal circumstances.

"First of all, _mom_, eavesdropping on private conversations- is not cool. In fact it's downright fucking rude." All of them were inwardly _cringing_ at the way that the girl spoke back. While Nat looked more than a little bit hurt. "Second of all, who Ikkaku is, and what I do to deal with him- is none of your business. _Now what are you doing here?_"

Deciding that he'd had enough of Ichigo speaking to Nat like she was, Clint stepped in and said, "We were talking earlier about some stuff that we've noticed about you- And Nat and the rest of us wanted to come and check on you." Though he spoke calmly, there was no masking the subtle spark of anger in his expression and his tone.

And Ichigo must have noticed that fact too because she flinched a little bit and gritted her teeth for a moment before muttering, "Sorry mom... Sorry everyone. I shouldn't have snapped. However the last time someone eavesdropped on one of my conversations, that person got tossed out of a window. It isn't something that I take too kindly no matter the good intentions involved."

"Noted," Clint said, the steely bite of his tone softening a little bit. "Now how about you answer Nat's question."

"Ikkaku is….not exactly a friend. I mean, I have enough crazy people around me. So I don't really need anymore but...hnnn- I guess the best way to describe him is he's a murderer in training?"

"Jesus kid," Tony muttered as he scrubbed his face with his hands. "How the fuck do you wind up involved with such dangerous people?"

Ichigo looked away, deciding that the wall was far more interesting than they were right then. She didn't have to dignify that particular question with a response. _How_ she wound up involved with such weirdo's was her business, not theirs.

"Does it have something to do with you teleporting and climbing the wall?" Bruce asked curiously. Ichigo looked back at them for a moment as he went on to say, "Cause that isn't normal."

She still didn't respond. She just stared at them like a restless animal that had just been caged.

It wasn't a good look. In fact it gave her an almost feral appearance to them. The word, _Dangerous_, slithered through each of their minds quickly followed by, _Threat, threat, threat. _

Thor, Steve and Bruce all started to tense up and look slightly nervous. Which was unusual considering that out of all of them, they were normally the calmest and most unafraid of the group. Yet somehow, standing in the bedroom of one teenage girl seemed to freak them out. It was beyond weird.

And just as it looked like she was about to say something, there was a oddly nerve wrackingly loud sound coming from something on the desk a few inches away from where Steve was standing. He glanced down in an effort to see what was making the strange sound and saw a deranged looking carved, wood skull with glowing red eyes attached to a keychain.

He was about to reach down and pick it up when Ichigo's hand came out of nowhere and she grabbed it before he could and he found himself looking apologetically into her blue eyes.

The sound went silent the moment that she touched the thing, and she flipped her cell open and began to press buttons for a moment before another beeping sound was heard a second before they all jumped at the sound of someone knocking on her door.

"Jesus Christ!" Tony yelped as Ichigo flipped her phone closed again and went over to the door and opened it to find Chad standing there.

"We need to go." The giant said in a soft rumbling tone. Ichigo nodded her head and slipped out of the room without bothering to explain anything else to them.


	11. Chapter 11

They had stayed up almost until dawn waiting for the kids to come back to the tower. And during that time, they hadn't exactly been idle. Nat and Tony both had decided to try and track the two wayward teens. Tony, did so because the last thing he needed on his hands was to loose someone else's kids.

That was simply a lawsuit waiting to happen. Plus, he was curious about what sort of crap they were getting themselves into. Whereas Nat did so...because she had adopted a couple of good kids and a pair of fucking delinquents that had run out into the city, at night, in their _PJ's_.

No wallets, no ID's, no money, just in case. If they got themselves lost, injured, kidnapped or killed- they wouldn't know it either until the kidnappers contacted them or until their faces were plastered all over the eveing news and frankly Nat found that _unacceptable_.

Steve and Clint apparently found it unacceptable too.

Just like they sort of found Tony's fear of a potential lawsuit unacceptable. But fuck them. He had bigger problems on his mind. Like how to escape the country without Pepper deciding to hunt his ass down for allowing this tiny debacle to even take place.

And frankly, he cared far more about not dying via pointy stiletto heels than he did anything else at the moment. After all, if the girl, Ichigo was a superhuman like he was now almost certainly believed her to be, then she could obviously take care of herself. And if her buddy Chad knew- like he suspected he did- then he could obviously take care of himself too.

"Tony, do you have anything?" Steve asked from directly behind him. Tony turned his head for a moment to cast the tall blond a stink eyed look from over his shoulder. Especially since that was like the billionth time in the past few hours that he'd been asked that, before slowly growling out.

"No. Steve. I do not."

How the fuck could a couple of teenagers with such distinguishing characteristics and possible 'superhuman' abilities running around in their PJ's could go utterly unnoticed so late at night without running across a fucking camera _somewhere_\- was beyond him.

"I think I do." Nat said after a heartbeat or so of silence, causing Tony and the others to suddenly crowd around her as she enlarged the image on her tablet and linked it to Friday's system so that she could create a projection of it big enough for all of them to see.

Ichigo wasn't wearing the same clothes that she'd left in was perhaps the first thing that Tony even vaguely noticed the moment that the girl was in view. No- she was wearing some weird black outfit that looked like a combo of kimono and...something else?

The kid's hair was up in a twist held in place by a clip and she had chains wrapped around her chest and one of her arms and had a massive fucking black bladed sword that looked more like an oversized knife. The flipping thing looked as heavy as Thor's hammer, Mjolnir. And the girl was handling it in a destructive fashion that was also akin to Thor's own.

She had the large blade held by a length of chain attached to the handle and was spinning it around over her head in a reckless, and terrifying manner that gave Tony flashbacks to all of the Final Destination movies and all of 'deaths' victims that were decapitated in the films.

Chad was standing back at a safe distance with his fists tightly clenched at his sides, his dark eyes flickering here and there in a wary manner before there was an explosion of some sort and flames and concrete and steel started to rain down on them.

Chad managed to escape serious harm by moving quickly. But for a few moments they lost track of Ichigo, who hadn't bothered to move at all. She had been busy swinging her sword around.

"Did any of you see what caused that?" Steve asked as he looked away to glance at the rest of them.

"I did." Clint said, looking strangely pale and sickly all of a sudden.

"You did? What was it that caused the explosion then?"

"I-I don't- I'm not-" Clint was trying to figure out exactly what it was that he'd just seen. It had been very frightening and faster than almost he could keep track of. Still he had seen it nevertheless.

_A nightmare_. That was really the only way to describe it accurately. Because whatever the monster he'd glimpsed was, it was something straight out of a nightmare.

"Clint?" Nat's voice cut through his thoughts as bile burned the back of his throat. "Clint, please...tell us what you saw." He felt her hands gently touch his arm and had to resist the urge to jerk away from her. As it was, he could barely suppress the flinch at her touch. And he could see that she noticed it too.

Her green eyes were wide with worry and concern. Not just for him but the kids too.

"I-It was a monster. Something like what you would see in a horror or fantasy film, Nat. It was huge, and black-" His breath caught for a moment and he stopped talking as he looked back to the image for a second. Tony was already trying to see if he could find what Clint had seen. "It looked like death." Was all that he could manage to choke out next.

"I can't find anything." Tony growled out after several moments.

"Try looking at the ground..." Clint finally said as he extended his arm so that he could point. "It wasn't an explosion that did all of that damage. The thing popped up out of the ground and spread it's wings and thrashed it's tail before it went for Ichigo."

Tony didn't say anything, but he did make the necessary adjustments to allow them to see what Clint had. And when they did, none of them could hold back the alarm, horror or dread that filled them upon _seeing_ the nightmarish monster.

"Tony..." Steve said after a moment or so. His tone indicating that they really needed to_ find_ those kids- causing the smaller man to finally blink and look away from the terrifying image and shakily say.

"Yeah, okay gimme a second to see where they are."

* * *

Luckily for them, after finding the location of the two teens, and grabbing what they had thought would be essential in saving them- they had been about to leave to go and get them and put that-that _whatever_ the fuck it was down like a rabid dog- when the two kids were announced as present in the building again by Friday.

Abandoning everything to go and see if they needed any medical treatment and stuff, all of them practically shoved each other out of the way just to reach to common room after Steve asked where they were exactly.

Once they were done practically fighting with each other to get into the room- which under normal circumstances would have been utterly hilarious, they all barely managed to step through the damned door before easily managing to spot Ichigo stretched out on her back on the couch in her PJ's. And her friend, Chad was sitting in the floor next to her, leaning his back against the seat as he wrapped a fair bit of gauze around her bare arm.

"I still think that you might need stitches for that gnash." He said gently. Ichigo merely hummed and tried to stifle a yawn with her other hand.

"There's no need for stitches Chad, I'm already healing." She said in a sleepy tone.

"I know. But you're exhausted because of how long it took to track down and deal with that Hollow."

The fight with the Hollow itself had been oddly anticlimactic for the two. Mainly because after the stupid thing had led them around in circles for a few hours- it had finally been found once Ichigo decided that she'd had enough of it's nonsense and used the spirit ribbon trick to hunt the damned thing down.

Which had been funny, Chad would admit to laughing at her for not thinking of using the ribbon trick sooner. Ichigo had responded in kind by planting her foot in his butt and pushing him forward a little bit in a playful manner that had made him just laugh harder.

However once they had finally caught up to the Hollow, it had continued to lead them a little bit of a chase until it had brought that building down on them. Chad had managed to escape harm in the usual fashion. Ichigo, however hadn't been quite so lucky. And while having to dig her out of the rubble had scared the hell out of him, he was just glad that the Hollow had literally tripped over a rock and_ impaled_ itself on her zanbakuto.

The Hollow had whined while it disappeared, while Ichigo had screamed at it. Furious that she hadn't actually gotten to _kill_ it after all the trouble it had caused.

Chad had been tempted to laugh, because it really was funny. Especially how Ichigo had screamed at it for committing 'pesticide'. But the urge had been squashed once she had collapsed.

"You should at least get your head checked out," He said as he finished wrapping her arm. "You got hit in the head pretty hard by the portion of the building that fell on you and I'm pretty sure that you have a concussion."

"I'll be fine. Just need some sleep."

"You aren't supposed to sleep when you have a concussion, Ichigo!"

Ichigo didn't respond verbally, she was a tad bit busy dozing off. She did however wave her hand at him before she managed to doze off completely. Leaving him alone to face the wrath of their 'adopted' mother and her friends.


	12. Chapter 12

Despite both of the kids being fine and fairly unharmed...seriously, anyways. Nat was beyond pissed that they had both been out fighting that- that _god-know's-whatever_ the fuck it was. So after checking over Chad and Ichigo, she grounded them both.

They weren't to leave the tower again without an escort, security team, and protective _armor_. The bullet proof kind. She still didn't have any intel on that stupid monster and shit due to how tight lipped the kids were about them when they were questioned- so she didn't know if bullet proof armor would actually be of any use.

But telling the kid(kid)s that they weren't to go anywhere from now on without those things made her feel moderately better about the whole damn fiasco.

But only just so.

However she wasn't such a hardass on her new babies that she felt she should deprive them of anything long term. So after a few days of fairly uneventfulness and peace and quiet, she finally decided that they had been punished enough and rescinded the 'grounding' so that they could go shopping for whatever they needed for the next three months since they had more or less been living out of their suit cases and it was time to fix that.

Clothing, toys, food, movies, music...ect. Even she wasn't so naive to think that the kids wouldn't need those things at one point or another. Especially if they had to go on missions and were gone for a few days, or even a week or more at a time.

So knowing that the kids had those things, and were entertained and happy and still in one piece- went a long way towards easing not only her, but the other's minds if they did have to at some point leave.

Tony was thoroughly convinced that if he could get Clint to help him get the kids hooked on Call of Duty or something equally fun then they wouldn't get into any _untoward_ trouble when no one was present to supervise them.

All they had to do was check in every few hours or so and make sure that they had food and something to drink. Beyond that, the kids should be fine. _Hopefully._

The day of the shopping trip began like any other day.

A nice breakfast with everyone, after which the kids were to go and get ready to leave for their necessary trip out into the city. Tony had already called ahead to several malls that he owned, to give everyone under his employ a heads up to their need to have the place semi shut down for security reasons.

After all, it was one thing for the Avengers to walk into a crowded mall to do some shopping. It was quite another to walk into one with four kids who practically had targets on them because they were in their company. Security measures had to be taken or else Pepper would _murder_ him viciously.

And that was after Nat tore into him.

So naturally he wanted to avoid anything humanly possible that could be considered a threat to any of the kids. However there was a tiny bit of a snag...

Ichigo didn't bother to prepare for the trip.

Hell the girl didn't even bother to change her clothes! And as much as Tony admired her 'go to hell' attitude when it came to her day to day appearance- Nat nearly blew a fucking gasket. And after screaming at her to go put something more appropriate on, Ichigo merely glared at her and told her to fuck off, she was fine as she was.

Nat responded in kind by throwing a chair at her.

And even though she missed- Tony was pretty sure was just a smidge too close to being child abuse. Steve, Thor, and Bruce were all pretty appalled by the fact that Nat had tried to take the kid's head off too. However they were at least smart enough to stay put whereas Clint decided to step between Nat and the kid in an effort to defuse the situation.

The poor, poor man.

"Calm down Nat, there's no reason to get so pissed. Ichigo isn't the type of girl who cares about appearances," He tried to calm Nat down by explaining something that he'd noticed immediately about the girl. "She doesn't like the unwanted attention on her. Looking like she's homeless-" Behind him, Ichigo took a moment to glance down at herself curiously. Almost as if she wondered what he meant. After which she deemed her clothing okay and scowled at his back. "It's just her way of trying to freak people out so that they'll leave her alone."

"I don't care. No daughter of mine is going out in public in anything less than nice clothing!"

"I don't own any 'nice' clothing." Ichigo hissed causing Clint to stiffen ever so slightly while Nat paused in mid rant to blink at her. "I own t-shirts and pants with holes in them and a threadbare jacket. And that's my day to day stuff that sometimes doubles as sleeping clothes."

"Why didn't you just say that you didn't have any nice clothing _before_ I threw a chair at you?"

"Because I _hate_ girly clothes. The fashions today are horrible..." Ichigo said with a haughty tone. Nat blinked at her for a moment and was about to say something else when Orihime's hand shot up and she started to jump around a little bit in place.

"I can help! I can help!" She chanted, hoping that mamma Nat would give her a chance to do so.

"We aren't in school Hime, now put your hand down." Ichigo said with a slight frown. Orihime put her hand down, but she still continued to sort of jump around in place a bit until one of the boys reached out and absently put his hands on her shoulders to stop her.

"You can help?" Nat asked as she cast a curious glance at the girl. Orihime's hopeful expression morphed into something almost evil as she grinned.

"Yup! When I found out that Ichigo was coming here with the rest of us, I and a couple of friends decided to raid one of her shops and get her some clothing that she would like. I made sure to pack a couple of shirts, some pants, leggings, shorts and even a really pretty dress or two! Since Ichigo doesn't dress up often-"

"Ever." Ichigo corrected in a deadpan tone. Orihime shot her a dirty look.

"_Often_," She said again with a pointed look. "I thought that it would be nice for her to really let her hair down and relax while we're here. I can go get something else for her to wear right now." Orihime offered...helpfully. Something that Ichigo was already planning to break her of. At least while they were in New York, anyways.

After all it was okay to be helpful during a life or death situation, but not so much when it came to a 'clothing' situation. There was a reason why Ichigo _liked_ looking like she did. It was far more comfortable than letting others choose what she wore for her.

Nat gave the auburn haired girl a indulgent smile, and Orihime whooped and took off towards the door while Ichigo let out a few oaths and started after her, only to be stopped by Clint snagging the back of her shirt as Chad called out, "Get one of the dresses Orihime! Uryu and I want to see Ichigo wearing a skirt!"

Ichigo slowly turned her head to look at the grinning giant and hissed out a furious sounding, _"Traitor!" _Which just made the teen laugh softly at her while Uryu just stood there for a moment longer before deciding to scamper off and help Orihime.

There was no way in hell that he was going to stay in that damned room with Ichigo as pissed as she was. He didn't have a death wish.

Both kids came back a few minutes later carrying several items. One of which was a pretty, knee length dress the same color as Ichigo's eyes, that had a pretty embroidered top with pastel colored flowers and a soft purple butterfly or two.

There were others of course, a couple of silk kimono style tops with flowers, river/pond patterns and even a lovely black one that had a gorgeous cherry blossom pattern with pale blue/turquoise flowers carefully stitched into the cloth.

The clothing was _beautiful_. Nat noticed as she looked over the stuff. It was hardly what Ichigo would even look at much less seemed to fancy, but then maybe that was the appeal.

Clint, Tony, Bruce and Steve all checked out the items too. Mostly out of curiousity. But even they were impressed by the amount of creativity that the item's creator must have poured into each piece.

"They look almost like paintings made out of thread." Steve said in awe as he picked up a shirt with a water/lotus blossom pattern on it that actually seemed to change color at different angles. The person who had created the shirt must have used something interesting to give the thread used to embroider the item that kind of effect.

It couldn't have been cheap either.

"Where did you say that you got these again?" Tony asked after a couple of minutes of utter silence.

"Ichigo's shop," Orihime chirped happily as she picked up a pastel yellow knee length dress with little mint green leaves and lilac purple, soft pink and silvery white magnolia's on it and held it up to Ichigo. "She's sort of a self made billionaire." Orihime explained as she absently checked the dress that she was holding up to her friend in an effort to see if it was pretty enough for Ichigo.

To say that Nat was stunned would be an understatement. She never would have pegged her darling little delinquent as a self made anything at her age. She was a kid after all. And it took ton's and tons of work to open and maintain a business of any kind.

And frankly, Ichigo didn't really come across as a CEO big shot business type.

Tony asked Friday to search on and pull up info on Ichigo's shop since he figured that all of them were curious enough while Orihime handed the yellow dress to Ichigo who looked at the piece of clothing with disdain. Oh how she utterly _loathed_ girly shit.

It barely took Friday five minutes to find everything on Ichigo's shop and begin to inform them all of stuff. Turned out, the kid had been technically in business for herself since she was practically eight years old.

In an interview from a local magazine, Ichigo had confessed that she had learned stuff from her mom and that it had sort of been a mother/daughter tradition to sit down together a make stuff. Clothing, jewelry, lotions, scented soaps, perfumes and other things.

However she didn't actually start to get serious about the stuff until about eight months after her mom had died. Apparently her dad's work wasn't enough to pay the bills and stuff. So the girl had stepped up and begun to take commissions from some elderly couples that brought some extra money in to help her family.

Which had turned into a part time job from home. And later on had turned into a full time job. Friday even sent a link to Ichigo's shop to each of their phones as well as some video's of Ichigo working.

Tony pulled up one video of Ichigo when she was about...eleven. And in it she was trying to dye some silk cloth a pretty light sky blue so that she could later embroider a nice pattern on it, and she apparently got a little bit _crazy_ with the dye. Because by the end of the video she had blue dye in some of her hair, smeared on her cheek, the tip of her nose, on her shirt, and her hands were so covered in the stuff that they looked like her hands had been amputated and replaced by Smurf hands.

Yet she still got the job done and had this great big amused grin on her face that only a little kid could pull off without looking like an ax murderer or something.

Honestly to Tony, her grin, even back then could scare the fuck out of someone.

Nat, Bruce, Steve and Clint had stumbled upon a funny little gem of a video where she was trying to make a piece of jewelry and was clumsily fumbling and losing the stones that she was trying to set only to have some huge black furred nightmare of an overly enthusiastic long furred cat come out of nowhere and ate a few of the stones. After which, she calmly stood up from her seat and then started to chase it around.

The cat escaped her. And Ichigo broke down crying.

But then in the video she'd been nine...and apparently crying back at that age was a thing.

Which was a little bit of a relief considering that the Ichigo that they were all becoming familiar with looked like someone who would rather cut off a limb than cry.

"Oh, this is wonderful." Bruce laughed as another 'work' video was pulled up, featuring Ichigo's little furry co-star. In this one she made the cat a few collars out of ribbon and beads. The furry little monster ate up the attention as it strutted it's stuff and showed off it's pretty little accessories before it got fed up and finally tried to take Ichigo's arm off.

The girl retaliated by nipping it's ear with her teeth and then froze up when she realized what she had done. The person filming her busted out laughing as she and the cat stared at each other with disbelief before the cat let out a loud, furious sounding roar of a growl and launched itself at her face.

The kid shrieked and the rest of the video consisted of her trying to escape the feline's wrath only to wind up face down on the floor, twitching while the cat sat on the back of her head.

Steve, Clint, and Nat all but howled with laughter and saved the video to their phones so that they could watch it again later as Orihime started to push Ichigo towards the nearest closet to get dressed.


End file.
